“I want to stay with you,” he answered.

It was only as a courtesy to her, a fellow nurse, that the staff was allowing a teenager inside. He had sworn to be as quiet and unobtrusive as humanly possible.

As his mother led the way through big double doors, a nurse came over and squeezed her hand in a silent show of support. They followed the nurse down a corridor to a picture window that looked into a dimly lit hospital room where his father lay.

The nurse pointed to a small table and chair. “That’s where I sit when I’m not in the room with him,” she whispered. “He’s never alone.”

Peyton’s mother tried and failed to smile, tears raining down her face. She reached out and took Peyton by the hand as the nurse put an arm around her shoulders and led her closer to the window.

His father lay very still. His head was bandaged, and he had a spaghetti bowl of tubes hooked up to him. Doctor Roth was standing over him, making notes on a chart. When the doctor looked up and saw them through the window, he finished his notes and came outside.

“Marshall’s doing extremely well, Kate,” he said. “To be honest, he came through surgery even better than I’d hoped. Let’s step outside so we won’t disturb the other patients, and I’ll tell you everything.”

Peyton’s mother reached out and gently touched the picture window as if she were touching his father’s face. Then she put her arm around Peyton and said, “Come on, honey. We’ll let Daddy rest.”

They followed Doctor Roth into a small conference room and sat down. “As we suspected,” the doctor began, “Marshall has a skull fracture, and a great deal of fluid had built up against his brain. We also saw evidence of a small bleed.”

“A stroke?” Peyton’s mother said.

“Yes, but only a small one. We drained all the fluid away and checked for any other damage. There’s still a little swelling, but that will go down on its own. The skull fracture will heal itself over time, but he’ll need to be extremely careful for a while. Definitely no horseback riding—or anything else that’s strenuous—for at least six months. As for the stroke, we’ll have to wait until he’s conscious to see where we are. But the good news is, I believe he can make a full recovery. It won’t be quick, but he can get there, with your help.”

Peyton could tell his mother was still fighting for composure. “How can we ever thank you, Eli?”

Doctor Roth took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with a tissue from a box on the table. “Tell Ida I followed her orders to the letter.”

eight

Peyton hung up the phone and sat silently for a couple of minutes in one of many wood-and-glass phone booths lining a wall of the hospital lobby. His call hadn’t gone as he had hoped. Lisa wasn’t home. Even worse, her mother said she would be spending the summer with family in Miami. And here he sat on a Friday afternoon, wondering what she was doing and who she was with instead of getting ready for a date.